Acceptance

Frustration is the emotion I battle the most by far.

This year’s Burn saw me step up as food lead for my camp. The year before I had felt touched by the food program the camp ran: the quality of its offering, the fulfillment and nutrition it provided, and the personal touch of providing chefs. I felt inspired to make my own mark on the program and through it touch my fellow camp members.

In retrospect the parameters and goals I set for the project were wrong, and the experience taught me many lessons about myself and the nature of ventures and intentionality. That discussion is for another time.

The type of frustration I typically combat is sharp and intense - something akin to anger which is hot and directed internally. However preparing a large scale food planning, sourcing and inventorying operation over many months built a frustration of another kind - a sort of slow building resentment, one which grew slowly and massively, as tectonic plates move across the earth and change its face but its change only perceivable when aware and looking for it.

In the journey of my Burn I found myself initially frustrated at my campmates. Each to varying degrees, but almost universally to some extent. Careless gestures were imbued with mirage intention in my heart and I felt alone in the crowd of my chosen family.

A journey undertaken to explore the Playa alone brought to the surface a single word in my heart: acceptance.

Up to that point I had been consciously reminding myself that if everyone was disappointing me then the problem did not lie with them. It was within me. But knowing this fact and internalizing it were different matters.

Acceptance was the bridge between my mind and my heart.

Acceptance is a gift. It is the acknowledgement and receipt of something which is in itself offered. In that sense acceptance is an exchange.

Acceptance is neutral. It is not normative. Acceptance does not make judgement on its subject. It does not try to confer growth via pronouncing good or bad or more or how. Acceptance simply is.

Acceptance is not resignation. Since sharing my insights from the night some campmates have reacted with sadness and concern. They fear acceptance is an abdication and subservience to an imperfect world. I disagree. I don’t think acceptance is related to my relationship with the world. Rather it is about my mind’s relationship with itself. The intentions and goals I set need not be lessened because I am at peace with the state of the world as it is in the moment. Anger is a distraction. Resentment is the fuel of fool.

Unhappiness is the gap between expectation and reality, and acceptance is the bridge between them.

Acceptance is a form of receiving. Because receiving is an action, acceptance requires consent. I choose to accept. For this reason acceptance is a choice. I can choose not to accept. Rejection is also a neutral act, for the inverse of a neutral is also neutral.

Acceptance is an act of love. Shedding the human instinct to control and to demand more requires maturity and thoughtfulness and intention. Acceptance may not feel like love to its subject, who themselves may want for more and for validation, however acceptance does not require gratitude. Acceptance simply is.

There is a lot to chew on here. Frustration, anger, and resentment are sisters and they are the enemy of my mind, all of them. Acceptance is a part of my arsenal against them, alongside intention and competence. I have underconsidered acceptance as a tool in my armory up until now.

I will continue to explore acceptance in its multitudes. I will practice it and I will refine it and I will inquire as to the limits of acceptance.

I am looking forward to a Year of Acceptance ahead.